Rawan Damen

Al Jazeera Arabic

Rawan Damen is an award-winning filmmaker and commissioner. A pioneering media personnel, Rawan directed tens of documentaries that were translated into different languages, including sign language. Her work included Pioneering Women (2007), Al Nakba, which is a four-hour series on the story of Palestine from 1799 (2008), Bitter Peace on Egyptian-Israeli negotiations (2009), Homeland Owners, a 5-hour series on Palestinians inside Israel (2010), The Road to Jan 25 on the social media revolution in Egypt (2011), and The Price of Oslo on secret negotiations between the PLO and Israel (2013). In all her works, Rawan is the researcher, director and producer.

She worked as a senior commissioning producer for Focus and Palestine in Focus strands with the Al Jazeera Media Network (2008 – 2016), supervising over 200 documentaries, fostering the rising Arab talent in the documentary filmmaking industry. She is the founder and team leader of Palestine Remix, the largest audio-visual interactive website on Palestine.

She is a jury member of the Sharjah Government Communication Awards and a member of the General Secretary of the Palestine International Forum for Media and Communication. She participated as a jury member in a number of Arab and international film festivals and gave specialised media training in Palestine, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Germany, UK, the US and Canada.

Between 2003 and 2006, she was an anchor in a number of TV and radio talk shows in Palestine and Jordan. She is also a co-author of three books on Palestinian oral history and critical issues surrounding Arab educational issues. Rawan holds a master's degree in communications studies, graduating with distinction from Leeds University in the UK, and a bachelor's degree in sociology and media from Birzeit University, Palestine, from which she graduated with honours in 2001.

She will be hosting Session 2 entitled "The Impact of Technology on News Reporting".